PYONGYANG, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced on Sunday that it will continue to develop its nuclear capability despite increasing condemnation by the international community.
"We are holding fast to the line of simultaneously developing the two fronts (economic growth and nuclear development) to safeguard the sovereignty, right to existence and peace from the ever-increasing nuclear threat and blackmail of the U.S., and the recent test was just part of the whole course of implementing the line," said a statement issued by a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry and carried by the state media KCNA.
The statement came two days after the DPRK's announcement that it had successfully carried out a nuclear warhead explosion, which marked its fifth nuclear test after Pyongyang conducted what it called a hydrogen-bomb test on Jan. 6.
The DPRK was compelled to develop nuclear warheads, and nuclear blackmail from the United States is "an engine which pushed the DPRK to reach this point," the statement noted.
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